1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to information processing devices, electronic certificate issuing methods and storage media, and more particularly to an information processing device, an electronic certificate issuing method and a computer-readable storage medium which issue an electronic certificate.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is the so-called “remote monitoring system” which enables a manufacturer or a maintenance service provider to remotely monitor via the Internet an image forming apparatus, such as a copying machine, a printer and a Multi-Function Peripheral (MFP), that is set up in an office, for example. The remote monitoring system includes an equipment information collecting apparatus which is provided on the user end and collects equipment information from the image forming apparatus, and a server apparatus which is provided on the manufacturer end or the maintenance service provider end. The equipment information collecting apparatus transfers the equipment information to the server apparatus via the Internet. Alternatively, the image forming apparatus transfers the equipment information directly to the server apparatus.
The equipment information may be used for accounting, and may include user's personal information or secret information. For this reason, there is a demand to transfer the equipment information by a secure communication. In order to prevent tampering of data or impersonating of the user on the transfer path, the equipment information is transferred between a client apparatus (that is, the equipment information collecting apparatus or the image forming apparatus) and the server apparatus by a communication employing mutual authentication and enciphering in a Secure Socket Layer (SSL).
In order to perform the mutual authentication, the client apparatus and the server apparatus must each have a secret key. The secret key must not be leaked to a third party in order to maintain security of the remote monitoring system. In addition, the secret key must be usable only by those client apparatuses authorized by the manufacturer or the maintenance service provider.
According to the conventional remote monitoring system, the public key certificate and the secret key, which are unique to the client apparatus, are basically embedded into each client apparatus when the client apparatuses are forwarded from the factory. In other words, an embedded equipment (or device) which is embedded with the unique public key certificate and secret key, and not a general purpose computer such as a Personal Computer (PC), is used for the image forming apparatus or the equipment information collecting apparatus forming the client apparatus.
Accordingly, when forwarding the client apparatuses from the factory, it is possible to record the secret key and the like in each client apparatus in a manner such that the secret key and the like cannot be physically extracted. As a result, it is possible to secure the uniqueness and safety of the secret key.
The applicant is aware of a Japanese Laid-Open. Patent Publication No. 2004-320715.
However, the flexibility of the remote monitoring system will be reduced by limiting the client apparatus to the embedded equipment (or device). For this reason, it is desirable to realize the functions of the client apparatus (equipment information collecting apparatus) by software that is installable into a general purpose computer such as the PC.
However, when the software described above is distributed in the form of a package via the Internet or a recording medium such as a CD-ROM, the package is created by copying the software. Hence, it is difficult to safely introduce the secret key and the like that are unique to each package, with respect to the PC to which the software is installed.
On the other hand, when the package is distributed via a network such as the Internet, a third party can acquire the package in a relatively easy manner. Consequently, the server apparatus which uses the software may be subject to an attack from the third party who acquired the package.